Infectious Diseases Fellowship

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Welcome to the Children's National Health System's Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellowship site. We are very proud of our program and its unique training opportunities. Our goals are to provide well-rounded training for fellows in clinical pediatric infectious diseases and in medical research. Successful completion of our ACGME-accredited program will provide the individual with the necessary qualifications for a position as a board-certified pediatric infectious diseases specialist.

Our program consists of three tracks, including two FDA Tracks affiliated with the United States Food and Drug Administration and a Traditional Track. Clinical training (see below) is identical for both tracks, with the tracks differing in research training focus (see Research tab below).

Please explore the information below as well as the other tabs to learn more about the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellowship opportunities.

Clinical Training

Clinical experiences for fellows comprise a total of one-third of the 3-year training program and occur at the Sheikh Zayed Campus for Advanced Children's Medicine of Children's National Health System in Washington, DC. Children's Hospital is a 313-bed facility that has served the nation's capital for over 140 years. Included in these beds are a Level IIIC Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, a Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, a Neurologic Intensive Care Unit, a Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Unit, and a Level I Trauma Center. We admit over 13,000 children annually and provide more than 350,000 outpatient visits per year. Our Infectious Diseases service sees approximately 30 new and 100 follow-up visits monthly in our outpatient clinic, with over 100 inpatient consult visits per month. We accept up to three new fellows into the program each year.

Our infectious diseases practice reflects a highly diverse patient population, with children residing in the mid-Atlantic region as well as those originating or traveling from sites across the United States and the world. We care for children with not only common pediatric infections such as pneumonia and osteomyelitis, but also conditions including malaria, typhoid fever, and other tropical diseases, endemic infections such as Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and infections in compromised hosts. Our fellows actively participate in our Special Immunology Service, providing subspecialty and primary care to HIV-exposed and infected children.

Research

Research experience is performed for 2 years out of the 3-year fellowship program. All fellows choose a Scholarly Activity resulting in a work product in accordance with American Board of Pediatrics requirements. The program provides access to a wide variety of opportunities for this major project. Additionally, most fellows also complete smaller research projects for publication, such as descriptive case series, retrospective case control studies, or prospective interventional studies, and present study findings at national meetings.

Traditional Track

Fellows in this track usually will complete a scholarly activity in clinical/translational or bench research, in any of a number of broad areas of focus in general or HIV-related infectious diseases, immunology, microbiology, or related fields. Opportunities for research related to global health and epidemiology/infection control also are possible. Fellows will work with ID attendings to identify research projects and mentor(s) within and/or external to the ID Division, such as, but not limited to Children’s Research Institute, the National Institutes of Health, George Washington University, and Walter Reed Medical Center. Rich opportunities, state-of-the-art research facilities, and infrastructural support are present on-site at the Children's Research Institute for the pursuit of a wide range of clinical, basic science, epidemiologic and outcomes research. Our Clinical and Translational Science Institute with pediatric Clinical Research Center is integrated within CNMC, facilitating close relationships between investigators and clinicians, and research by physician scientists.

FDA Tracks

In the FDA Tracks, the Scholarly Activity is based on the fellow's major review endeavors at the FDA, either related to antimicrobial agents (CDER fellow) or vaccines (CBER fellow). For both CDER and CBER fellows, most of the research time is spent on the FDA campus, with primary focus of reviewing a new product for possible FDA approval. These work products represent a comprehensive study of a new product, with a report considerably longer and more detailed than a journal article.

CDER

Fellows review animal data, pharmacology, clinical trial protocols, and other data under the mentorship of CDER physicians, biostatisticians, and other personnel, for new antimicrobial agents submitted for approval. CDER fellows work in the Division of Anti-Infective Products and in the Division of Antiviral Products, housed within FDA's Office of Antimicrobial Products.

Education

Daily Microbiology Lab Rounds

While on the inpatient consult service at Children's National, team members meet every weekday with our microbiology lab director, Joseph Campos, PhD, and review basic principles of diagnostic microbiology and view interesting cases in the lab.

Tuesday Academic Conferences

All infectious diseases fellows, regardless of monthly duty assignment, participate in activities on Tuesday afternoons at Children's National. These activities include a number of conferences:

Board Review Sessions: These weekly sessions serve as an ongoing board review preparation course, with both fellows and faculty preparing talks. Sessions are linked to topics in major textbooks and to clinical practice guidelines. Multiple choice questions accompany each session.

Case Conference: Two times per month, a fellow prepares an illustrative case to present for informal discussion with faculty and other fellows. The second half of the session consists of discussion of difficult or unusual current cases, for the purpose of seeking advice and guidance from the group.

City-wide Case Conference: Once monthly we convene a case conference, inviting all pediatric infectious disease providers from the Washington, DC region to participate either in person or electronically.

Journal Club: Once monthly we hold a journal club, focusing on applying results of original research to clinical care.

Fellows Core Curriculum: Occurring approximately six times per year for 1st and 2nd year fellows from all disciplines at Children's National Health System, these conferences provide instruction in core ACGME-required content, including biostatistics and epidemiology, research study design, quality improvement, and career planning.

Microbiology/Infection Control Rotation

All 2nd year fellows participate in a 3-week practicum in clinical microbiology and infection control, working closely with laboratory technologists, Dr. Campos, and Dr. Xiaoyan Song, Associate Chief of Infection Control.

Medical Education

The inpatient consult fellow provides weekly teaching conferences to pediatric residents and medical students on common pediatric infectious diseases problems. Fellows are observed for feedback on teaching skills. Additionally, fellows often are asked to participate in hospital-wide conferences such as the weekly case conference, Professorial Rounds.

Greater Washington Infectious Diseases Society (GWIDS)

GWIDS meets monthly and consists of both adult and pediatric infectious diseases clinicians from the DC area, including those at NIH. Each program or institution is responsible for presenting interesting cases once per year, and all Children's National fellows present at least twice during the three-year training period.

Advanced Degrees

Many fellows have chosen to pursue advanced degrees during their fellowship training. Classwork can be successfully integrated into the fellowship program. The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services offers Masters of Public Health degrees in a number of disciplines. A newer program with the federally-funded Clinical and Translational Science Institute at Children's National (CTSI-CN) offers master's and certificate-level programs for training in clinical and translational research, in conjunction with the GWU School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Fellows are encouraged to consider enrolling in one of these programs.

Faculty and Staff

The Infectious Diseases Division at Children's National consists of six general pediatric infectious disease physicians, including one individual with a focus on transplant infectious diseases. Fellows also work with two additional physicians focusing primarily on HIV-related care and research, Drs. Natella Rakhmanina and Kathleen Ferrer. Additionally, our PhD laboratory director, Dr. Joseph Campos, and our doctoral-level chief of infection control, Dr. Xiaoyan Song, have a significant degree of involvement in fellow education. More information is available at the division's web site.

Additional faculty participate with the FDA Track programs, including Dr. Sumati Nambiar who oversees training at CDER and Drs. Wellington Sun and Doran Fink, who serve similar roles at CBER.

Combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Infectious Diseases Fellowship

In conjunction with Dr. Tara Palmore, Fellowship Director of the Infectious Diseases Fellowship at the National Institutes of Health, we are accepting applications from highly qualified graduates of US and Canadian internal medicine-pediatrics residencies for our 4-year fellowship program. The fellow would spend 1 year each in clinical pediatric infectious diseases and clinical adult infectious diseases, with the remaining 2 years of training focusing on a research topic chosen by the fellow. Interested applicants should contact Dr. Wiedermann directly at bwiederm@childrensnational.org.

Frequently Asked Questions

What visas are accepted?

Is completion of pediatric residency training in the U.S. OR Canada a requirement?

Completion of US or Canadian pediatric residency is required.

What do trainees do after graduation?

Our graduates have gone on to a wide variety of experiences in the past. Although most recent graduates are now pediatric infectious disease faculty at academic children's hospitals, prior graduates have been employed in epidemiologic work for the CDC, private practice of pediatric infectious diseases, federal governmental positions with the FDA, and in the pharmaceutical industry, in addition to the traditional academic career paths.

Cameron's Story

"I hope this letter gives hope to other parents that may be in this same situation. Early diagnosis is the key."